I recently scavenged a Toshiba Portege R500 and the thing seems not to be the most reliable of beasts. The first thing I noticed was that the sound wouldn't work, either under W7 or linux. It also gets pretty darn hot on the bottom even with CPU speed control enabled (under linux). Maybe that is normal, as there is a sticker on the bottom that says it might burn your legs. (Seriously!) Neither of these was enough of a problem to worry about, it wasn't intended for sound use, and I just put a book under it.
The last issue though is real PITA. The keyboard has two control keys, one on each side. They used to work (I am 100% certain about that) but at some point recently they stopped doing so. It is pretty much impossible to work on the command line in Linux without a working control key!
Anybody seen this issue before, or something like it? Google turned up a few people who said it was probably a bad keyboard. Could be, but why all of a sudden? Why both keys at the same time? I have hardly used the thing, it has been on about 10 times, total since I got it, and most of that was wiping partitions and installing Ubuntu.
Where does one obtain a cheap but definitely working keyboard for a laptop? There is always Ebay, but are there are any other sources?
The last issue though is real PITA. The keyboard has two control keys, one on each side. They used to work (I am 100% certain about that) but at some point recently they stopped doing so. It is pretty much impossible to work on the command line in Linux without a working control key!
Anybody seen this issue before, or something like it? Google turned up a few people who said it was probably a bad keyboard. Could be, but why all of a sudden? Why both keys at the same time? I have hardly used the thing, it has been on about 10 times, total since I got it, and most of that was wiping partitions and installing Ubuntu.
Where does one obtain a cheap but definitely working keyboard for a laptop? There is always Ebay, but are there are any other sources?
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